What’s worth more than gold? People? Water? Mountains? Protest called in London this Sunday, 1st September, to stop Europe’s biggest gold mine poisoning Romania. 24 EU cities join.

After more than a decade of resisting the largest open-cast gold mine in Europe, lots of Romanians feel they have been sabotaged by their own government this week.

Despite fierce opposition from hundreds of organisations in Romania and beyond, politicians have now passed a special law, seemingly without due process, that allows a Canadian mining company, Gabriel Resources, to begin exploitation for gold and other metals in Rosia Montana, Transylvania.

The rushed-through bill will let the company use compulsory purchase orders to requisition the remaining required land from residents who have refused to sell for 14 years. Local residents are pressured to leave their homes, and those that remain and resist are going to be expropriated by the paramilitary private police of the company, of course in the name of the state and it’s so called „national interests”.

The risks of ecological catastrophe from this mine are enormous. As well as the huge damage to the Transylvanian mountains caused by high explosives - removing mountain tops and creating a 400m-deep crater that will be visible from the moon - the gold extraction also uses chemical processes that will create a lake of lethal cyanide 185m deep. The estimations are that there will be used about 200.000 tons of cyanide, only to process 200 tons of gold and a couple hundred tons of silver! What will be next is a apocalypse, with extremely high chances of toxic catastrophe across Romania, Hungary, the Danube river and even the Black Sea.

Although cyanide is used in Scandinavian mines (where small quantities are used in sealed containers) nothing on this scale has been attempted before in Europe. The only comparable projects are in Canada, where the area in question is under permafrost, and in the Australian desert. RMGC will use forty tons of cyanide every day and I believe that the groundwater and air supplies of Transylvania, one of the most beautiful and pristine parts of Europe, will become so toxic that whole populations will be displaced.
Campaigners say it’s not a risk worth taking. On the one side, devastated landscapes, polluted water and air, damaged people and wildlife. One the other side, a bit more gold bling in the world.

Everyone who believes this isn’t a fair swap is invited to join the gold protest this Sunday, 1st September, 3pm, outside the Romanian Embassy in London (Kensington High Street, W8 4QD), and show solidarity with activists in Romania. People are invited to come dressed in gold-coloured clothes - there will 'gold frisbee’, 'gold football’ and a ‘race for gold'. The protest will be live streamed

There is still time to change minds. The Romanian parliament is voting in the next few weeks to approve the bill. There are protests happening all over Europe (Paris, Bruxelles,
Viena,
Berlin,
Londra,
Roma, Praga,
Lisabona, Oslo, Copenhaga, Madrid, Luxemburg, Washington D.C., Maastricht, Amsterdam, Budapesta, Munchen, Bonn, Aarhus, Geneva).

Further info:

For information, international coverage, videos and images (in English):

 http://storify.com/RosiaMontanaUK/solidarity-with-rosia-montana-what-cyanide-are-you

Full list of participating cities:  http://www.rosiamontana.org/stiri/lista-oraselor-care-pe-1-septembrie-se-alatura-protestului-impotriva-distrugerii-rosiei (25 in Romania, 24 in EU)

Fact sheet can be found here:  https://www.evernote.com/shard/s201/sh/ee143c30-02b9-43bd-80a9-15a2a181b802/8c8eec839a521c847bcde4e9d82f5241